Shivangi Misra

As the Senior Legal Advisor, Shivangi contributes to legal strategy, research, and drafting submissions for strategic litigation, thematic reports, advocacy, and submissions to UN treaty body mechanisms on women’s equality. In her role, she focuses on the implementation of international human rights standards and holding governments accountable to their legal obligations.

Shivangi has an LLB from Symbiosis Law School, India and an LLM from Queen’s University, Canada. Prior to working with Equality Now, she worked with the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action, focusing on the domestic implementation of international law in Canada and related strategic advocacy with the federal government. In this role, she co-authored thematic reports on police violence, domestic implementation mechanisms, and feminist economic recovery plans and contributed to written submissions to UN treaty bodies. In India, she worked with Supreme Court advocates Indira Jaising and Anand Grover on strategic advocacy and campaigns on the right to health, access to justice, and freedom from gender-based violence. An internship with the legal department at the UN Headquarters in New York got her interested in international human rights law. She has published chapters and articles on the MeToo Movement, access to life-saving medicines, disability rights, and FGM. She currently serves on the advisory board of the UC Berkeley Centre on Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law.

Inspired by the women in her family –  who are brilliant, funny, and resilient. She likes a quote from the Irish civil rights leader Bernadette Devlin, ‘We were born into an unjust system; we are not prepared to grow old in it’. The commitment to rebuild society is the core of the feminist struggle. 

In her free time outside of work, she organizes for women, migrants, workers, and tenant rights. The rest of the time, she is often on the phone with her mother, reading, spending time with the people she loves, and sometimes she tries to play badminton.

Originally from Dehradun, India, Shivangi currently resides in Ottawa, Canada.

She is fluent in Hindi and English